A view of the Nagara River from our room.

A lot of time has gone by since our trip to Japan this past spring, but I really enjoy reflecting on it. We have many photos and if you are like me you take them and then rarely look at them again. Somehow the digital age doesn’t quite have the same feel as sitting on the couch and looking through an old fashioned photo album. My reflections posted here at least get me looking through all those photos. I hope you find them interesting.

We left Tokyo (blog post here) for Gifu by train. This trip we had a much easier time navigating the multi-level and maze-like train stations and platforms, but it was still a bit intense. Once on the high speed train or Shinkansen, it’s easy to relax as the train races across the landscape at 200 mph/320 kmh. Gifu is where our friends Masashi and Madoka live. I was also scheduled to teach another 5-day One Tree class at the Gifu Academy of Forest Science and Culture. During our time in Gifu we arranged lacquer lessons with Madoka. Jazmin attended most of the lessons while I was teaching. More on urushi lacquer here.

The lacquer lessons with Madoka-san were great. We both learned a lot. One challenge to learning lacquering techniques is the time it takes for each layer to cure (24 hrs or more, depending. Because of this the sessions needed to be spread out over several days (ideally weeks and months). We only had 5 days. Madoka asked if I would bring some of my work that already had a few base layers on them in order to learn about more in depth techniques. Last year we learned about fuki, which is a brushed on and then wiped off lacquer. It’s fairly straight forward and we’ve been practicing that technique for over a year now. This time the focus was on brushing techniques with specific types of lacquer. We learned how to mix the traditional red pigment with kijiro a type of lacquer that is almost colorless. We also learned about black lacquers, brushing techniques and sanding. There are many sanding techniques, some using charcoal made from specific trees and another using fine wet dry sand paper backed by a piece of rubber eraser to name just two. Dust control is very important. Any tiny bit of dust will create a little dimple in the cured lacquer which is very easy to see and detracts from the finish. To mitigate the dust everything is wiped with a solvent, soft chamois, or dust free cloth. The lacquer is filtered and the brushes are also cleaned many times. The brushes are very interesting. The type we own and use are a thin wide cross section made from wood with a core of hair. The best brushes for urushi are made from human hair which is a very tough fiber. These brushes can run over $100 each. A serious lacquer artist will have dozens all shaped or designated for specific tasks. We have 4 and are slowly collecting more as needed. We learned that controlling the levels of humidity in the curing cabinet or muro is also very important. A matte or gloss finish can be controlled by the humidity levels, but the type of lacquer used also effects the finish. There are many types of urushi. So far we have used just 4-5 types. Properly curing urushi is very important. We learned that after applying the last coat the objects should rest in the humid muro for approximately 30 days.

The constant truth we face is the fact that mastering lacquer will take years of practice. Patience and keen observation is always in the forefront of my mind when I sit down to use it. It’s definitely shaping me and my work in unexpected ways. Some day I hope we can spend an extended period of time in Japan so we can get more in-depth training, but for now we continue with what we learned every few days here in our workshop.

We are getting ready to split some wood to carve

The One Tree workshop was another amazing experience for me. This time around it was a lot easier to teach. I think this was because Masashi and I had worked together in Gifu the year before and because we spent some weeks together with Moriguchi-san in the Wagatabon tray class held at North House Folk School just before we came to Japan. I knew what to expect and how to pace out my instruction to allow for his excellent and thoughtful translation. The class was attended by a handful of select students. We favored a wide blend of folks from all kinds of backgrounds and areas of Japan. This year there was a man from Okinawa, the most southern island. One of my biggest impressions is Japanese students’ powers of observation. I am split between thinking that this could be because of the language barrier, Japanese rules of etiquette and manners, or because of their old style of apprenticeship learning. Doug Brooks, an American boat builder, writes about this. Doug has spent over two decades documenting boatbuilding in Japan and learned first hand the very traditional Japanese attitudes of sharing knowledge during his studies with various wooden boatbuilders.

The old way of training rests the responsibility of learning entirely on the apprentice. The teacher/master does not explicitly impart any information to the student nor does he feel responsible to explain anything at any point. His “lessons” happen in silence. The student must be intensely observant to gain all the knowledge that one day he/she will be expected to perform. This is where the saying that you have to steal the lessons from your master originate from. It’s a very extreme contrast from the methods I’m used to. But it makes sense on many levels.

Greenwoodworking is growing in popularity in Japan and these classes are significant to growing it even further. Taking a workshop like this was not heard of just a few years ago. Having a hobby like spoon carving or woodturning just didn’t happen, if you needed something like a basket or wooden bowl or spoon you purchased it directly from the maker or more likely a merchant. If you’ve tried to buy some Japanese craft from someone you found on Instagram you know what I mean. Craftspeople rarely deal with sales themselves favoring galleries and the like. Things are changing though and more people are offering and attending workshops in spoon carving, basketry, and other crafts all around Japan.

The class was a great success. Just look at the great things folks made in the 5 days we spent together. I developed new designs for this class that were more aligned to the Japanese aesthetic and to traditional household objects like tea caddy’s, small plates and trays, small shrink pots for flower arrangements and spice condiments like sansho or shichimi, and spoons of course. This time we carved both a traditional renge soup spoon and a Swedish style spoon. For those who have attended one of my workshops you know that I’m very focused on process and skill building before design. The reasons for this I hope are obvious. The best part is that students will take the things they have learned and go on to explore new designs and teach others when they return home. I’m very humbled and honored to be part of this. Another interesting outcome of the class was that of international exchange. Kei Watanabe who attended last year’s class and was an assistant in this years class expressed interest in coming to work with me in the US. We arranged for Kei to come stay with us here in Wisconsin and this past October he spent 3 weeks working alongside Joey and I. We all learned a lot from each other.

After the week in Gifu, Masashi, Jazmin and I traveled on to Kobe and met up with an old friend, writer, and photographer Hidehiro Otake. Together we went to the Takanaka Carpenter Museum and continued on to Miki city to visit a tool manufacturer and a famous furniture maker.

Japan- Gifu and Urushi

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